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Proprietorship of designs.E+W+S+N.I.

2(1)The author of a design shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as the original proprietor of the design, subject to the following provisions.

(1A)Where a design is created in pursuance of a commission for money or money’s worth, the person commissioning the design shall be treated as the original proprietor of the design.

(1B)Where, in a case not falling within subsection (1A), a design is created by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer shall be treated as the original proprietor of the design.

(2)Where a design, or the right to apply a design to any article, becomes vested, whether by assignment, transmission or operation of law, in any person other than the original proprietor, either alone or jointly with the original proprietor, that other person, or as the case may be the original proprietor and that other person, shall be treated for the purposes of this Act as the proprietor of the design or as the proprietor of the design in relation to that article.

(3)In this Act the “author” of a design means the person who creates it.

(4)In the case of a design generated by computer in circumstances such that there is no human author, the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the design are made shall be taken to be the author.

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